Room

Room ***
Sammy’s script certainly receives high marks for clever and humourous dialogue – in fact some of the most creative and enjoyable in the festival. It needs development in a couple of areas: minor characters needed more development and the ending seemed abrupt and unfinished. The biggest flaw was that Keenan, Jesse, and Jackson raced through their lines resulting in missed gems of dialogue. Their characterizations were quite enjoyable, they simply need to work on slowing down and articulating the text – I recommend vocal exercises that stress consonant pronounciation. In terms of direction, it felt like there was little. I can be somewhat forgiving since Sean is only in Grade 11 but on the other hand, he should have solicited assistance now and again from either a teacher or a Grade 12 whose directorial eye he respected. It seemed clear that the boys were told to either sit or stand at certain points, but not much else. Support cast (Misha, Emily, Niki, and Tamo) were commendable with what they had to work with; Jesse’s set was fairly non-descript and assembled together hodge-podge; and Niki’s costumes were fun and helped to delineate characters.